


Give me shelter, or show me heart

by cooperjones2020



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: 1x13 deleted scene, AU, F/M, Fluff, IKEA, the Coopers foster Jughead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 22:09:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11746176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cooperjones2020/pseuds/cooperjones2020
Summary: My contribution to our collective flailing over that deleted scene.Or:Jughead has a panic attack in Ikea.





	Give me shelter, or show me heart

**Author's Note:**

> title from “Only Love” by Ben Howard

Jughead’s hand is on Betty’s headrest as she drives, the modern day equivalent of having his arm around her shoulders on a bench seat. It’s not quite as good, but he can still twirl of piece of her hair in his fingers, so he’s pretty satisfied. He’d wanted to take FP’s truck, but Betty insisted her mom’s SUV would be better if they got any little decorative stuff. The furniture boxes would be fine in the truck bed, but linens and pillows and things? No way.

He isn’t quite sure what she meant by ‘little decorative stuff’ but he supposes he will need bedding at least. Though he doesn’t understand why that requires a trip to the blue and yellow monstrosity he can currently see from the interstate while they’re still three miles away from their exit.

When they finally reach it, and while Betty navigates the labyrinth of access roads, he says, “You know, I don’t think I ever realized you guys had a spare room.”

“We don’t, technically. But Mom and Dad are gonna clear out the office in the basement.”

“What? No, they don’t have to do that. I can just sleep on the couch or something.”

Betty gives him a look as she pulls into the parking lot. “Juggie. You’re getting a bedroom. They don’t need a home office. They already have an office. It’s at the _Register_. And if this means I get you 24/7 plus the added bonus of them maybe working from home a little bit less? We’re not questioning it. Now, come on. I have Mom’s credit card and we have shopping to do.”

And with that, the case is closed. He lets her tug him into the store. She’s using her determined walk and she has an iron grip on his hand that only relaxes when she pushes a cart toward him and whips out the mini pencil an employee had given her to begin writing down serial numbers and weird Swedish names.

The sea of shoppers carries them forward on its current, and in each new section of the store the pile in their cart climbs higher. There’s sheets, pillows, something called a duvet cover. Even curtains and a throw rug. He draws the line at the decorative pillows though. Still, she sneaks in art for the walls and a matching set of lamps.

Then, he sees Betty flip over to the back side of her little slip of paper because she’s run out of space on the front. What the hell more does he need besides a bed? They could just drop an air mattress on the floor like Fred had and be done with it.

Look, Jughead likes to consider himself a pretty chill guy. And he’s got great focus; he can tune anything out. A skill he honed over long years of trying to sleep with only flimsy trailer walls between him and his parents. He can sit in a busy diner for hours and only see and hear the words on the page in front of him. But this place? Sensory overload. He fights the urge to hide in the “Market Hall,” which seems to be code for the tchotchkes surburban housewives use to one up each other.

He succumbs to it in the part with all the bedroom set displays. When Betty finds him, he’s standing between a wardrobe and a fake wall concentrating on the feeling of the air conditioning in his nostrils.

“Juggie, come see this one bed over here, I think you’ll really like it—” She stops and studies his face. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I just needed a break, that’s all.”

“Nothing is why I can see the vein pulsing between your eyes and why you’ve got your hat pulled down over your ears?”

He sighs and slides it back into place. “I thought we were just getting bedding and stuff. Betty, your parents are already doing so much. They don’t have to spend all this money on me too.”

“Jug, they want to. It’s not that big a deal. My mom gave me a budget and told me what she thought we should buy. I’ve been keeping track of the costs of everything as we go.”

He doesn’t know how to tell her that it is a big deal. That’s he’s never picked out his own furniture before, and he didn’t know a person was expected to have an opinion on the number of drawers in a nightstand and whether the wood should coordinate with the textiles. Hell, before today he’d never been fully sure what people meant when they said ‘textiles.’

He doesn’t know how to tell her that after months of steering all by himself, he’s afraid to let someone else get back in the driver’s seat. Even someone as terrifyingly competent as Alice Cooper.

“But, Betts, do they know they also volunteered to feed me? For every meal? Do you know how much I eat? Do you know how much a kid costs? And I probably eat twice as much as you and Polly. Well, maybe not Polly right now, but Polly normally. And, oh God, when the babies come? That’s _three_ extra mouths!”

“Jug, stop.” She unhooks his arms from where they’re clenched, folded across his chest. She wraps them around her and slips her own around his waist, resting her chin on his sternum so she can look up at him.

“They know. You know my mother. By the time they asked us last night, she’d already calculated and recalculated the family budget from here til we go to college. I know it’s scary. And I get if you maybe…weren’t ready for this kind of intimacy in our relationship. I mean, last night in the trailer was one thing, but seeing me every morning with no make up and un-brushed teeth? Being around for every crazy Cooper argument?”

He tilts his head down and kisses her forehead. “I can’t wait to see you with no makeup and kiss you with morning breath. And I have a damn good pair of headphones. But your mom said it last night, you’re the perfect family. I don’t fit in that picture. Not least because I don’t have blonde hair.”

“I’ll dye my hair brunette so you won’t stick out so much. And there’s a very good chance the babies will have Blossom red hair.” Betty gives an exaggerated shudder then squeezes him tighter. “Please let them help. It’s just stuff. It’s just some furniture. We don’t have to get it all if you don’t want it, but don’t freak out and convince yourself you’re being a burden. You keep me sane and grounded every day. This is pennies compared to that. Besides, I’m sure you can just dedicate your first book to my mom and she’ll consider you even.” He laughs.

“Okay.”

They stay in the alcove between the wardrobe and the fake wall a few more minutes, and by the time they emerge, Jughead is no longer thinking about budgets and mouths to feed. Instead, he’s focusing on keeping an adequate supply of blood in the top half of his body.

In the end, they settle on a bed and nightstands, a dresser, a desk, and a roll-y chair with good lumbar support. For those late nights he spends writing, Betty says. There are a few tchotchkes, but not as many as before his freak out.

She smiles at him as they check out and it’s like winning the lottery and a lifetime supply of burgers all on the same day.

“Betts.” Jughead pulls on her hand and flicks his eyes toward the cafeteria. Betty rolls her eyes in response.

“Alright, I guess we can’t take your Ikea virginity and _not_ have meatballs.” Jughead’s face splits into a shit-eating grin as he drags her over.


End file.
